With Bolton's Appointment, It’s Time to Panic

Unhinged war monger John Bolton.

Donald Trump and his base of support centered on Christian extremists, white supremacists and general misogynists all live in an alternate, objective fact free universe.  Their world view which is full of  hate and paranoia is fanned by Fox News and other right wing "news" outlets that  present a daily dose of propaganda that would have made Joseph Goebbels proud.  Now, Trump has appointed John Bolton to be National Security Advisor.  Bolton is just as unhinged as the ugliest elements of Trump's base and, more frighteningly, is trigger happy and sees military action rather than diplomacy as a solution for  every foreign dispute.  He was a strong advocate of the Iraq War and seems to have learned nothing from that debacle.  A piece in Slate looks at why sane Americans and members of the military should be very, very afraid of where Trump/Pence may take the country.  Another piece in New York Magazine voices similar concerns.  First, here are highlights from Slate:

It’s time to push the panic button.

John Bolton’s appointment as national security adviser—a post that requires no Senate confirmation—puts the United States on a path to war. And it’s fair to say President Donald Trump wants us on that path.

After all, Trump gave Bolton the job after the two held several conversations (despite White House chief of staff John Kelly’s orders barring Bolton from the building). And there was this remark that Trump made after firing Rex Tillerson and nominating the more hawkish Mike Pompeo to take his place: “We’re getting very close to having the Cabinet and other things I want.”

Bolton has repeatedly called for launching a first strike on North Korea, scuttling the nuclear arms deal with Iran, and then bombing that country too. He says and writes these things not as part of some clever “madman theory” to bring Kim Jong-un and the mullahs of Tehran to the bargaining table, but rather because he simply wants to destroy them and America’s other enemies too.

His agenda is not “peace through strength,” the motto of more conventional Republican hawks that Trump included in a tweet on Wednesday, but rather regime change through war. He is a neocon without the moral fervor of some who wear that label—i.e., he is keen to topple oppressive regimes not in order to spread democracy but rather to expand American power.

In the early days of the George W. Bush administration, Vice President Dick Cheney finagled Bolton a job as undersecretary of state for arms control—an inside joke, since Bolton has never read an arms-control treaty that he liked. But his real assignment was to serve as Cheney’s spy in Foggy Bottom, monitoring and, when possible, obstructing any attempts at peaceful diplomacy mounted by Secretary of State Colin Powell.

When Powell got the boot, Cheney wanted to make Bolton deputy secretary of state, replacing Richard Armitage, who resigned along with his best friend Powell. But Powell’s replacement, Condoleezza Rice, who had been Bush’s national security adviser, blocked the move, fully aware of Bolton’s obstructionist ideology.

As a compromise, Bush nominated Bolton to be United Nations ambassador, but that move proved unbearable to even the Republican-controlled Senate at the time. . . . . he was hostile to the idea of international law, having once declared, “It is a big mistake for us to grant any validity to international law even when it may seem in our short-term interest to do so—because over the long term, the goal of those who think that international law really means anything are those who want to constrain the United States.”

These might be quaint notions for some eccentric midlevel aide to espouse, but the United Nations is founded on international law, Security Council resolutions are drafted to enforce international law, and . . . some of those resolutions were proving useful for expressing, and sometimes enforcing, U.S. national security interests. How could someone with these views serve as the U.S. ambassador to the U.N.?

In his confirmation hearings before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Bolton put on a dreadful show, grumbling and scowling through his walrus mustache.

[A]t least McMaster assembled—and often listened to—a professional staff at the National Security Council and insisted on ousting amateur ideologues, several of them acolytes of Flynn.

Bolton is not likely to put up with a professional staff, and the flood of White House exiles will soon intensify. One subject of discussion at Bolton’s Senate hearings, back in 2005, was his intolerance of any views that differed from his own. He displayed this trait most harshly when, as undersecretary of state, he tried to fire two intelligence analysts who challenged his (erroneous) view that Cuba was developing biological weapons and supplying the weapons to rogue regimes.

Nor is Bolton at all suited to perform one of a national security adviser’s main responsibilities—assembling the Cabinet secretaries to debate various options in foreign and military policy, mediating their differences, and either hammering out a compromise or presenting the choices to the president.

Then again, there may now no longer be many differences to mediate in this administration. The last of the grown-ups is Secretary of Defense James Mattis . . . . [Trump] didn’t know that Mattis regularly consulted a personal library of some 7,000 volumes on history and strategy, that (like most generals) he’s not too keen to go to war unless he really has to, and that (also like most generals) he takes the Geneva Conventions seriously and opposes torture.

With Tillerson out, Bolton in, and Pompeo waiting in the wings for confirmation, Trump is feeling his oats, coming into his own, like Trump is free to be Trump. Finding out just who that is may make the rest of us duck and cover.

The New York Magazine piece contains this:

From the outset of his presidency, to which he was elevated with barely any preparation, Donald Trump was surrounded by a protective cordon of advisers, as a child monarch might. In return for absorbing his tantrums, they would educate their unsteady charge, who would wind up, after pratfalls and drama, inflicting no more ruin on the country than a normal modern Republican president might. . . . Somehow it seemed we might muddle through.

Now Trump is breaking through the protective cordon. The people who joined the government to save Donald Trump from himself, or to save the world from Trump, are leaving. Gary Cohn and Rex Tillerson are gone. Trump is reorganizing his legal team, mobilizing for war against the special counsel. And now he has finally cast off his most important minder, National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster, and replaced him with John Bolton.

Bolton . . . is a true believing ideologue firmly encamped on his party’s right flank, who appears regularly on Fox News to propound ultra-simplistic solutions to the world’s problems, which Trump can easily grasp on his sofa.

Bolton’s foreign policy notions can be quickly operationalized, given the near-total command the executive branch has over foreign policy. What’s more, those ideas have the potential to kill large numbers of people.

Bolton has long been estranged from a substantial segment of his own party, which regards him as dangerous. . . . . while many of his colleagues came away at least somewhat chastened by their errors, Bolton did not. “I still think the decision to overthrow Saddam was correct,” he said in 2015.

Bolton is considered so dangerous, even by many Republican hawks, because he is a true believer, deeply in the grips of black and white notions of simple morality that are difficult to reconcile with the messy reality that is the world. There is a long history of ideologues joining a presidential administration and terrifying the establishment, only to be assimilated into its bureaucratic routines. But Bolton’s character and history seem to defy any such domestication.

The combination of Bolton and Trump poses an especially potent danger. Trump once declared “I love war, in a certain way.” Both men think in terms of zero-sum conflict and harbor an obsession with dominating their adversaries. They are temperamental twins. In North Korea or elsewhere, Bolton could goad Trump into dangerous reaction.

It has been the tail risks – any number of low-probability, high impact events that are far more likely to occur with an authoritarian buffoon in the White House than under a normal president. Trump has spent his presidency surrounded by people who were at least attempting to contain these risks – say, a Constitutional crisis, or a meltdown of the international order. As awful and comically surreal as the first year and a quarter of his term has been, after Trump has taken full command of his administration, we may see it as a golden age.

Be very afraid.  Those of us who live in an area like Hampton Roads, Virginia, with a huge military personnel do not want to see the lives of friends and neighbors thrown away yet again.  Just as importantly, we should not want to see Trump by either mistake or design authorize the use of nuclear weapons.  

Are International Legal Cases Against Torture Participants Coming?

As noted in one of the last posts uploaded yesterday, under the UN Convention on Torture, if the United States fails to prosecute American torture participants, then other countries can launch prosecutions and the United States will have to either allow the defendants to be extradited or find itself further outside the bounds of international law.  Think Progress has a piece that looks at the question of whether international prosecutions are in the offing.  It's probably safe to say that George W. Bush and Dick Cheney won't be traveling outside the USA any time soon.  Here are article highlights:

New evidence might bring new legal cases against American officials involved in the Central Intelligence Agency’s “enhanced interrogation” program after the release of previously classified information on Tuesday. The Senate Intelligence Committee’s 525-page report report which details the “brutal” interrogations of 39 detainees has spurred calls for prosecution from the U.N., as well as human rights’ and civil liberties organizations. 

“We made mistakes,” C.I.A. director John Brennan said in a statement, but he maintained that his agency’s policies were legal. 

But Ben Emmerson, the United Nations’ special rapporteur on counter terrorism and human rights doesn’t think official authorization from agencies within the U.S. frees those who carried out torture from facing justice. 

“The fact that the policies revealed in this report were authorized at a high level within the U.S. government provides no excuse whatsoever,” Emmerson said in a statement. “Indeed, it reinforces the need for criminal accountability.” 

He added that as a signatory to the U.N. Convention Against Torture, the U.S. is legally obligated to prosecute acts of torture and enforced disappearance if there is sufficient evidence to to bring about a case.

International law does not permit individuals who carried out torture to dismiss liability because they were acting on orders. And, Emmerson said, “States are not free to maintain or permit impunity for these grave crimes.”

“Other countries have all the information they need should they wish to exercise universal jurisdiction and prosecute these officials should they appear in their borders,” Andrea Prasow of Human Rights Watch said.

Universal jurisdiction is a legal doctrine that allows the courts of any country to try certain crimes against humanity including torture regardless of where those crimes took place or who is alleged to have committed them. It stems from a 1998 case brought by a Spanish court against the Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet for the murder and torture of opposition figures. 

Some organizations that have already invoked this principle and are planning to use this new release of information to build their case against American officials.

In a fact sheet, the ACLU notes that there are a number of U.S. laws that could be invoked to hold those accused of torture responsible including the federal torture statute that criminalizes the infliction of severe physical or mental suffering with intent outside of the U.S. 

The group points out that while some of the alleged crimes occurred more than a decade ago, “There is no statute of limitations under the torture statute when the abuse risked or resulted in serious physical injury or death.”

Brunei Law To Allow Death By Stoning For Gay Sex

I condemn conservative Christians who are best defined by their hatred of others frequently on this blog.  But Christian fundamentalists are not the only foul force in the world.  Right along side them are the Islamic fundamentalists who likewise cling to ignorance, spew hatred towards others and fight a rear guard battle against modernity itself.   The latest example is what is happening in Brunei where an extreme sharia law penal code has been enacted which imposes the death penalty for an array of offenses including same sex relations. If anyone deserves the death penalty, it is those who passed the new penal code and those who advocated for it.  Huffington Post looks at this development which violates international law:

The United Nations has responded to the nation of Brunei, a sovereign state in southeast Asia, where officials are reportedly set to roll out a new penal code including death by stoning as punishment for same-sex acts.

Other offenses referenced in the revision of capital punishment regulations reportedly include "rape, adultery, sodomy, extramarital sexual relations for Muslims, insulting any verses of the Quran and Hadith, blasphemy, declaring oneself a prophet or non-Muslim, and murder." 

The revised penal code is slated to go into effect April 22, according to Gay Asia News and other media outlets.

“Application of the death penalty for such a broad range of offenses contravenes international law,” Rupert Colville, spokesperson for the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, said in a statement. “We urge the Government to delay the entry into force of the revised penal code and to conduct a comprehensive review ensuring its compliance with international human rights standards,” he told a news conference in Geneva.

Brunei is the latest in a series of countries to pass anti-gay laws that could result in extreme punishments for those engaging in same-sex acts. In February, Uganda's president signed a bill that calls for first-time offenders of same-sex acts to be sentenced to 14 years in jail, and "repeat offenders" could receive life in prison. Additionally, Nigeria has a similar anti-gay law that makes same-sex relationships illegal and sets penalties of same-sex acts at up to 14 years in prison.

Conservative/fundamentalist religion is always an evil.  The public needs to open its eyes to this reality and not be distracted by charitable activities that in no way outweigh the evils done and by claims of "religious freedom" on the part of those who seek to oppress others. 

Afghanistan "Government" Proves U.S. Mission Has Been a Fool's Errand

Remember how America invaded Afghanistan to root out the Taliban and end its Medieval theology and abusive rule?  And in this process, America has expended over a billion dollars and sacrificed thousands of American lives.  Now, if it wasn't already perfectly clear that Afghanistan is a war that should never have happened (only Iraq was a bigger disaster), the so-called government of Afghanistan - a snakes nest of corrupt individuals and organizations that have stolen incalculable amounts of U.S. funds - is considering adopting amendments to the penal code to revive Taliban  penalties, including stoning of adulterers.  For centuries Afghanistan has been a foul backwater yet America in its typical hubris - best exemplified by the cretin George W. Bush  and the evil Emperor Palpatine Cheney - thought it could impose American values when no other nation has been able to do so.  The Guardian has details.  Here are highlights:

Afghan government officials have proposed reintroducing public stoning as a punishment for adultery, Human Rights Watch said, even though the practice has been denounced both inside and outside the country as one of the most repugnant symbols of the Taliban regime.

The sentence for married adulterers, along with flogging for unmarried offenders, appears in a draft revision of the country's penal code being managed by the ministry of justice.

There are several references to stoning in a translated section of the draft seen by the Guardian, including detailed notes on judicial requirements for handing down the sentence.

"Men and women who commit adultery shall be punished based on the circumstances to one of the following punishments: lashing, stoning [to death]," article 21 states. The draft goes on to specify that the stoning should be public, in article 23.

News that the government is contemplating bringing back a much-reviled punishment is unlikely to go down well with the western governments that back Kabul.

"It is absolutely shocking that 12 years after the fall of the Taliban government, the Karzai administration might bring back stoning as a punishment," said Brad Adams, Asia director at Human Rights Watch.

The penalty violates international human rights standards that ban torture and cruel and inhuman punishment, the rights group said in statement.

Some take away thoughts: (1) My heart goes out to families who lost loved ones - their lives were thrown away ultimately for nothing.  Thankfully, my son-in-law escaped with only serious injuries.  Far too many were not as lucky.  (2) Bush and Cheney need to be tried for war crimes.  (3) As with so much evil in the world, this move in Afghanistan traces back to religious belief, the root of so much death, misery and broken lives. 

International Criminal Court Considering Arrest of Author of Uganda’s ‘Kill the Gays’ Bill

In a move that I would welcome, the International Criminal Court is considering arresting the author of Uganda’s ‘Kill the Gays’ bill.  Of course, there are quite a few others that should be arrested under the theory being used by the Court, including anti-gay lunatic Scott Lively who has been marketing anti-gay hate not only in Africa but also Russia.  One can imagine the furor that would ensue if one backed legislation calling for the execution of Jews, Muslims, Christians, etc.  It's no different with gays because in the last analysis it is the same religious based hatred that fuels these kinds of hatred.  Gay Star News looks at the development:

The International Criminal Court is considering arresting the author of Uganda’s ‘Kill the Gays’ bill.  Magembe Norman, a straight Ugandan gay rights activist, has received a response to his complaint calling for the arrest of three extremist anti-gay spokespeople.

The subjects of the complaint are Uganda MP David Bahati, pastor Martin Ssempa and Rolling Stone editor Giles Muhamel.

In a letter passed exclusively to Gay Star News, the ICC said they were ‘analysing the situation’ provided and will consider whether there is reasonable basis to believe the crimes have been committed and the gravity of the crimes.

Norman said he felt ‘very optimistic’ his complaint would succeed.  Speaking to GSN, he said: ‘I feel that I am almost there, and that it is just a matter of time before justice is served.

The gay rights activist said he wanted to bring this to the world stage to ensure Bahati, Ssempa and Muhamel are punished for their crimes against humanity.  ‘It serves as a warning to the others that persecution of LGBTs is a criminal offense and they will never get away with it,’ Norman said.

Bahati, who submitted the Anti-Homosexuality Bill, has expressed a desire to ‘kill every last gay person in Uganda’.   Pastor Martin Ssempa has reportedly shown hardcore gay porn in churches to stir up anti-gay sentiment, and has referred to LGBT people as ‘abnormal’. 

Giles Muhame, the former editor of tabloid Rolling Stone, published a front-page article showing 100 pictures of Uganda’s most well known gay people.  The story listed the names, addresses, and pictures, as well as a caption reading ‘Hang Them’.  It is believed this is why gay rights activist David Kato was brutally murdered by two hammer strikes to the head.

It is far past time that religious based hatred be tolerated under international law.  Those who seek to fan it and destroy the lives of others need to be prosecuted.  It is also far past time that religion cease receiving legal and societal deference.  Hate and bigotry are the main products of religion and any good works that are done are far outweighed by the evil promoted.

 

International Criminal Court is considering arresting the author of Uganda’s ‘Kill the Gays’ bill. - See more at: http://www.gaystarnews.com/article/global-court-consider-arresting-author-uganda%E2%80%99s-%E2%80%98kill-gays%E2%80%99-bill130913#sthash.WeW2PiGx.dpuf

International Criminal Court is considering arresting the author of Uganda’s ‘Kill the Gays’ bill. - See more at: http://www.gaystarnews.com/article/global-court-consider-arresting-author-uganda%E2%80%99s-%E2%80%98kill-gays%E2%80%99-bill130913#sthash.WeW2PiGx.dpuf

Catholic Bishops Still Seek to Avoid Accountability for Sex Abuse

Here in the USA, the Roman Catholic Church continues its jihad against LGBT equality even as more and more evidence of culpability of the Church hierarchy in the molestation of children and youths comes out in countries literally all around the world. Once again I find myself asking myself why anyone listens to these bitter old men who in many cases ought to be behind bars? In Belgium, the Church is faced with over 500 abuse complaints which led to at least 13 suicides. Meanwhile, Amnesty International is accusing the Vatican of breaching its obligations under international law to protect children from sex abuse. First these highlights from the Montreal Gazette on the debacle in Belgium:
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BRUSSELS - Belgium's Roman Catholic Church vowed Monday to compensate the victims of pedophile priests as lawsuit threats loom after a child abuse scandal that has rocked the Church for more than a year.
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Accused for months of showing little compassion for the victims, the bishops and heads of religious orders deplored the abuses that were documented last year by a Church-backed commission, which revealed nearly 500 cases involving Church workers that took place over several decades, resulting in 13 suicides.
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Some 80 abuse victims are already mounting a class-action lawsuit against the Belgian Church and the Vatican, accusing religious authorities of negligence by turning a blind eye to the crimes committed by predator priests.
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A lawyer for the Belgian victims, Walter Van Steenbrugge, is holding a press conference on Wednesday to present his case against the Vatican and the Belgian Church.
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Last month Van Steenbrugge charged that while Pope Benedict XVI and Belgian Church leader Andre-Joseph Leonard say they were fighting sex abuse, "they are doing quite the opposite — protecting abusers, hailing their protectors, excommunicating those who denounce the facts."
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Then there are these highlights from a Huffington Post story on Amnesty International's allegations against the Vatican:
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VATICAN CITY (RNS) Amnesty International has criticized the Vatican for falling short of its commitments to protect children from sex abuse. "The Holy See did not sufficiently comply with its international obligations relating to the protection of children," the human rights group said in its latest annual report, released on Friday (May 13).
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"Increasing evidence of widespread child sexual abuse committed by members of the clergy over the past decades, and of the enduring failure of the Catholic Church to address these crimes properly, continued to emerge in various countries" during 2010, the report said.
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Amnesty said the Vatican had failed in its obligations as a party to the United Nations' Convention on the Rights of the Child, by "not removing alleged perpetrators from their posts pending proper investigations, not cooperating with judicial authorities to bring them to justice and not ensuring proper reparation to victims."
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So why are these despicable old men still given deference and respect?

America Needs to Be Aware of Its Own Decline

The "real Americans" of the GOP who worship insularity and ignorance of the world typified by Sarah Palin and other politicians who know little of the world outside of the USA's borders and who seem to have no interest in educating themselves on anything beyond slogans and sound bites on Fox News or Rush Limbaugh's radio rants are causing real harm to the nation and its future. The world is changing and the USA needs to recognize these changes - the emergence of China, the inherent instability of the political systems in the Middle East, etc. - and change itself along with unstoppable forces driving change around the globe. Instead, these folks want to cling to a 1950's and 1960's mindset and a version of America that never even really existed. An article in The Atlantic looks at this dangerous phenomenon and makes the case of why it needs to change. Here are some highlights:
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I think it's important, as the age of U.S. unipolarity ends, for American conservatives to see the world in terms of an international society and not just a Hobbesian, dog-eat-dog system. . . . . The reason it is especially important now for Americans to recognize the societal dimension of international life is that America is in decline.
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That's not a statement of opinion and is not intended to suggest that America's current economic malaise is permanent, because that probably isn't the case. But no matter how strongly the U.S. bounces back, it is a mature economy and unlikely ever to match China's growth rates. China also has a much larger population, so it can overtake the American economy even while its citizens remain much poorer; by some measures, China is already the world's largest economy.
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If you're thinking America has previously faced down a peer competitor (the Soviet Union) and won handsomely, keep in mind that China is already a much larger economic force that Soviet Russia ever was, and that China is not done yet. Nor is India, or Indonesia. In fact, the "great convergence" between developed and developing economies is the economic and strategic story of our age.
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[I]n the multipolar order to come, international society will be far more important to the U.S.
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[I]nternational political life has its own laws, institutions, traditions and norms, which can be knitted together into a loose "constitutional" order. In an environment where one great power is rising and another is in decline (a situation that, historically, almost always creates conflict), such an order will be far more convivial than one marked by a naked contest of power. And given that traditions and institutions, by definition, take generations to establish, the U.S. cannot begin building them soon enough.
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Now, if there are any conservatives left reading this post, they may well be thinking that this all sounds rather ... well ... progressive. In my next post, I want to explain why conservatives can't just dismiss this as a lefty CINO (conservative-in-name-only) plot.
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A refusal to accept objective reality be it in the realm of economics, international relations or societal change is a hallmark of today's GOP and its Christianist and Tea Party allies. Ignoring the truth doesn't somehow magically make it untrue. Proper change in policies and institutions can only prosper when one is willing to recognize objective fact - something the GOP no longer even pretends to do as it panders for short term gain with no view to the future.

Christianists Support Torture

Andrew Sullivan has a timely post on a new poll that readily shows what false the Evangelicals have become as measured by their support of the use of torture. Increasingly these vicious and falsely pious frauds will condone virtually anything that plays to their hate and prejudice. These folks parade around wearing religion on their sleeves hating anyone and everyone who doesn't look just like them. Christ must be disgusted to have His name associated with such frauds. I agree with Andrew's assessment:

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If you want to know why I cannot bring myself to call the base of the Republican party Christians, and instead use the term Christianist, a new poll helps explain why. . . . . The idea that torture is immoral in itself seems alien to a majority of the millions who lined up to see Mel Gibson's The Passion Of The Christ. Since the South was built on torture-slavery, this is not that historically surprising. Many ancestors of today's Christianists tortured African-Americans routinely. But the extent of Southern evangelicals support for violating one of the core moral absolutes of Christianity is striking.

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As for the new poll, here are some pertinent details of the poll findings. They are troubling and reflect a mindset not too far different than that of Hitler's Nazis or Islamic fundamentalists. No wonder the Chimperator thinks he can ignore the Geneva Conventions and long established international law banning torture. These people are frightening and a menace:

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WASHINGTON -- A new poll released Thursday (Sept. 11) finds that nearly six in 10 white Southern evangelicals believe torture is justified. . . . The poll, commissioned by Faith in Public Life and Mercer University, found that 57 percent of respondents said torture can be often or sometimes justified to gain important information from suspected terrorists.

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Researchers also found that 65 percent of white Southern evangelicals support McCain, 14 percent support Obama and 21 percent remain undecided.

Boy to be executed for Underage Homosexual Act, Take Ation!

This information comes via an Iranian student in Canada's blog (http://kamangir.net/2007/10/30/boy-to-be-executed-for-underage-homosexual-act-take-ation/) and clearly shows the dangers of religion run amok. At times, I think religion has caused more horrors and death over the course of history than any other cause save plagues and primitive medical care. Iran's track record on the treatment of gays is among the worse in the world. I do have to wonder, however, how the judge "knew" that penetration had occurred? Does he have experience with gay sex? Amnesty International is also reporting this story (http://web.amnesty.org/library/Index/ENGMDE131252007?open&of=ENG-2MD) Here are a few highlights:

Child offender Makwan Moloudzadeh, an Iranian Kurd, is believed to be at risk of imminent execution. He has reportedly been convicted of lavat-e iqabi (anal sex) for the alleged rape of a 13-year-old boy. Makwan Moloudzadeh was aged 13 at the time of the alleged offence. His death sentence has been passed to the Office for the Implementation of Sentences and he is due to be executed in public, near his home.

He was reportedly arrested on 1 October 2006 in Paveh, in the western province of Kermanshah. He was detained in Paveh Prison and later transferred to Kermanshah Central Prison. Following interrogations in Paveh during which he was reportedly ill-treated, he was tried by Branch 1 of the Kermanshah Criminal Court and on 7 June 2007 he was sentenced to death. The witnesses and the two people who had pressed charges against him withdrew their claims after the trial. Under Iranian law, children (boys of up to 14.7 years) are to be flogged for lavat ("homosexual acts").

However, the judge relied on ‘elm-e qazi, the "knowledge of the judge" to determine that penetration had taken place and that Makwan Moloudzadeh could be sentenced to death. Makwan Moloudzadeh lodged an appeal on 5 July, which the Supreme Court rejected on 1 August. Several witnesses have withdrawn their testimonies and signed notarized written statements to that effect.

Article 1210(1) of Iran’s Civil Code sets the ages of 15 lunar years as the age of criminal responsibility for boys, and nine lunar years for girls. Makwan Moloudzadeh was reportedly born on 31 March 1986 and, at the age of 13, was a minor under Iranian law at the time of the alleged offence. According to Article 49 of Iran’s Penal Code: "Children, if committing an offence, are exempted from criminal responsibility. Their correction is the responsibility of their guardians or, if the court decides, by a centre for correction of minors." Furthermore, in this case the judge used the customary practice of "judge’s knowledge" to override Article 113 of Iran’s Penal Code which states, "If a minor has anal sex with another minor, each will receive up to 74 lashes unless one of them was forced to do so [in which case he will not be punished]."

since 1990, Iran has executed at least 24 child offenders, with a further two reportedly put to death on 17 October 2007. At least 78 child offenders are on death row in Iran; at least 15 Afghan child offenders are reportedly under sentence of death. For more information about Amnesty International's concerns regarding executions of child offenders in Iran, please see: Iran: The last executioner of children (MDE 13/059/2007, June 2007)http://web.amnesty.org/library/index/engmde130592007